Yesterday Jeremy Hanson made a not overly sincere offer to expand the Ministry from five to six.
Here at RiotACT we noted this would banjo the committee system in the Assembly.
Chief Minister Gallagher has joined that refrain:
“Just one week ago the opposition leader refused to support an increase to the size of the Legislative Assembly, against [...]

The Liberal Leader Jeremy Hanson is cunningly offering legislation to expand the Ministry to a sixth Minister.
Before The backbenchers get too excited it’s worth noting Jeremy’s not doing this out of the goodness of his heart:
“Over the past month we have heard the calls from Katy Gallagher on how over-worked her current Ministers are and [...]

Chief MInister Gallagher is making compelling arguments for expanding the Legislative Assembly.
The ABC however reports that the Liberals Jeremy Hanson wants more public consultation.
But what if the public is wrong?

Chief Minister Gallagher has sensibly announced the utterly expected finding that the best way forward for the Legislative Assembly is a Greens and Independents screwing five electorates returning five members.
It will raise the bar for minor parties but it will stop the farce of the Molonglo electorate encompassing Woden, Inner North, Inner South, and Gungahlin.
An [...]

Greens Senator Christine Milne has announced the passage of legislation to let the ACT Legislative Assembly determine its own size:
The bill, which passed the House of Representatives last month and passed the Senate today, was secured as part of ongoing negotiations with the Greens.
“I’m thrilled that we have secured the right of ACT residents to [...]

It’s a source of constant wonder how, despite many reorgs to rectify it, so many different arms of the ACT Government can keep bits of their tentacles in so many different pies.
Today the Liberals’ Brendan Smyth is asking why all the conservation can’t be done by TAMS.
ACT Shadow Minister for Environment, Brendan Smyth, will move [...]

Labor Member for Fraser Andrew Leigh has published his submission to the ACT Electoral Commission’s Expert Reference Group and it’s inquiry into the size of the ACT Legislative Assembly.
Like any smart observer he wants an expansion to a setup five five electorates each returning five members. (rather than the current nutso 5, 5, 7 arrangement).
[...]

Andrew Barr is having some fun with Liberal Leader Jeremy Hanson’s new found distaste for progressivism:
In the Legislative Assembly this morning, Mr Hanson moved a motion criticising the ACT Government for being progressive, and labelled as extreme and progressive Government policies such as renewable energy targets and emission reduction targets.
However, in his maiden speech to [...]

Setting a new record for email interview replies Liberal Leader Jeremy Hanson has responded to your questions with these answers:

1. poetix
What is your favourite music, and why?
Pretty diverse tastes from AC/DC to classical but if I have a favourite it’s country music with a bluesy edge. Reason being I play the guitar and sing [...]

OK Rioters, the Liberals have a new leader and his office has agreed to answer your questions.
Let rip in the comments (brevity will be smiled upon) and I’ll pick ten questions to send over.

OK, here’s where this has come from for those coming in late.
New speaker Liberal Vicki Dunne decided she wanted a church service to start the Assembly sitting year. This happens for the big kids on the Hill.
Instead of lightly canvassing her colleagues for support she sent out official invitations first and then when Chief [...]

Political circles are getting very excited by the Canberra Times reporting on Tony Abbott’s remarks last night on the pre-selection race.
Bearing in mind that the Times is basically the Mouth Of Gazza at this point in the race Abbott’s remarks are not as clear cut as they at first appear:
Mr Abbott praised Senator Humphries’ political [...]

The Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Amendment Bill 2013 was tabled in the Commonwealth Parliament today. Disturbingly, it hands to the ACT Legislative Assembly the power to determine the number of MLAs.
The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Australian Capital Territory (Self Government) Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act) to grant the Australian Capital [...]

The Canberra Times has an intriguing story on Simon Corbell announcing to the Assembly that his Office of Regulatory Services is investigating the Canberra Liberals.
This is curious.
In the article the Liberals say they know nothing about this.
The ORS media release page has nothing on this at the time of writing.
So Simon is in special communication [...]

Katy attempting to smear the new Liberal leader as a “bully” was the clumsiest tactic I have ever observed in Canberra local politics.
So clearly based on Julia Gillard’s UK campaign adviser’s work.
This attempt to drag ACT politics into the hideous federal bare knuckle-and-abuse parliamentary exchanges will not take her and her team anywhere. [...]

It’s a bit of a poser, Zed Seselja intends to draw a front bench Legislative Assembly salary to the last possible moment while running for the Senate (assuming he gets up in the pre-selection).
Should the Canberra community be indulging him in this?

Zed mooching around the Assembly to election day
Sure, why not
He really should [...]

There are two problems with the Canberra Times’ ongoing efforts to pre-empt democractic processes in their attempts to get around the moribund business of printing news on dead trees:
1) They get it wrong, all the time.
2) Their narrative robs the participants of democratic franchise
They should be judged very harshly for this.
But they’ll keep getting the [...]

Zed Seselja’s media advisor Emily Davis has announced there will be a press conference at 2pm.
(Yes exactly who is making the call is possibly significant)
Keep your eyes posted.

UPDATE: Jeremy Hanson is the leader, Alistair Coe as deputy.

It does make one wonder what Senator Humphries was playing at when he convinced the Canberra Times Alistair Coe [...]

The Canberra Times is reporting that a deal has been done to install Alistair Coe as leader of the opposition in return for his Young Liberal army of darkness backing Zed’s Senate tilt.
Zed of course has a vote in the party room today.
In 8 months time when Zed leaves the Assembly the numbers will change.
It’s [...]

Today as I trawled through The Riot Act to pass the time and I read about Zed’s impending coup against Gaz and a religious conservative displacing a secular moderate, I came across some posts about the October 2012 ACT Election.
Reading them, I was reminded of Philip Pocock. Remember him? The qualified and registered psychologist who had interesting [...]

The Canberra Times brings word of the increasing acrimony in the local Liberal Party as Sentator Humphries fights for his life and tries to rally the moderates after years of letting Zed’s conservatives take over the party.
Former Canberra Liberals president and Howard government staffer Gary Kent told Fairfax he had been threatened with expulsion from [...]

Speaker Dunne has the thrilling news that we can now petition the Legislative Assembly online!
“Petitioning parliament has long been an avenue used by citizens to have their say and it has always been a feature of the ACT Legislative Assembly,” Mrs Dunne said.
“ACT residents will now be able to add their names to petitions from [...]

While Zed gets about the business of knifing the generally well regarded Senator Humphries, and Brendan Smyth and Jeremy Hanson set to on the leadership front, there is an even grislier prospect for the party.
Zed’s replacement in Brindabella is either going to be the ancient hero of Tharwa, Val Jeffery, who surely does not have [...]

Word is breaking that Liberal Leader Zed Seselja has taken the easy option of knocking off sitting Senator Gary Humphries rather than taking the hard road of trying to win a new seat for his party.
We’ll let you know what this means for the Legislative Assembly when we know.

UPDATE 04/01/13 09:06: Word is that Zed [...]

The ABC brings word that Monday is the deadline for Liberal party nominations to run in this year’s federal election.
Which means Zed Seselja’s Hamlet act is drawing to a close.
Will he run at the lacklustre Gai Brodtmann in the southern electorate of Canberra?
Will he get into a preselection brawl with sitting Liberal Senator Gary Humphries?
Will [...]

A reader has pointed out the exciting news that retired Labor heavyweight John Hargreaves has featured in the Commonwealth Parliamentarian in which he has provided numerous bullet points on how he filled his days as Labor whip.
The four page spread starts on page 178 for those who are interested.

Just before Christmas we took notice of a strange little spat being fought out by proxy between Speaker Dunne, who wants a little church service to start the Assembly sitting year, and Chief Minister Gallagher who doesn’t want a bar of it.
The row is now running on the UK’s National Secular Society.
Ms Gallagher said on [...]

If you haven’t had a listen to Barack Obama’s second inaugural address it’s well worth a listen.
While meant for an American audience it struck me that he’s getting close to a viable political philosophy for the 21st century in stark contrast to the ever more tired nostrums of Australia’s political parties.

The ABC’s Antony Green is having a look at the process underway to expand the Legislative Assembly:
The ACT’s original electoral system elected 17 members at large. The introduction of the Hare-Clark electoral system in the existing 17 member Assembly created the undesirable situation where the three electorates return different numbers of members. If the Assembly [...]

A regular in the Assembly building (and won’t you all be trying to figure out who?) has sent this in:
assembly photo fit
i know its only been three months, but…
On a related note we can’t help but observe the losing Green MLAs are still getting their tweets pumped onto the Green website Meredith and Amanda appear [...]

A keen eyed reader has spied Giulia Jones’ campaign wagon out and about.
Got an image of Canberra you want to share with the world? Email it in to images@the-riotact.com .

The Canberra Times reports that Zed Seselja’s go to guys Stephen Doyle and Tio Faulkner are checking out of the office, following spin queen Hannah Passfield who left after the election.
Tio remains party president.
It sounds as if Zed did knock over Gary Humphries for the Liberal Senate pre-selection we could see the three back in [...]